The second session at the british museum was focused on the research and how to learn from the museum’s drawings and prints collection. The homework last week was to choose a work from the collection for sarah to take out for us to see this week and also to come up with a ‘theme’ to do a workshop on. I was actually more inspired by some of the other works the other people chose. I learnt a lot about how to read a drawing from this session, as well as how to think of the public when you are planning a workshop.
research on my mini 10 min workshop for next week:
research - into workshop, three works as foundation
HANS BELLMER: erotic drawing, 1942 https://britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=3501446&partId=1&searchText=hans+bellmer&page=1
“…touring exhibition, 'Lines of Thought'
Bellmer's work draws heavily on the Surrealist tradition of automatism, the interpretation of uncontrolled marks or blots to expose the workings of the unconscious. André Breton, in his 'First Surrealist Manifesto' (1924), described the goal of his pursuit of literary automatism as 'spoken thought'. This drawing from the collection of the artist Richard Hamilton is not fully automatic, but the blot has been used to give free rein to the subconscious, enacting uninhibited interpretive play associating the forms of eye, nipple and orifice. Limbs and female body parts are implied by the sinuous line, though the forms remain purposefully ambiguous,”
PAUL NASH: the wanderer, 1911 https://britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=733101&partId=1&searchText=paul+nash+&page=1
He later reflected in his 1949 autobiography 'Outline' that he left 'without having learnt to draw in the accepted sense' (p. 110). In truth, though he felt animated by a 'great desire to draw' he struggled with some of the more traditional aspects of his artistic training: 'I find painful difficulties in drawing from the model! I know what I want to express - all that I can see beautiful of line and expression, and away goes the correctness - the true proportion!' (Letter to Bottomley, 14 July 1910, p. 6).
…From then on, Nash's interest in landscape drawing grew and he spent the greater part of his career depicting his particular perception of nature.
Nash found an ease in landscape drawing that he couldn't grasp in his life drawing classes at the Slade: 'I did not find it difficult to draw this tree as I had found the models at the Slade difficult to draw' (Outline, p. 110). The vision of nature that Nash unveils through his early landscapes was informed by his childhood experiences in Kensington Gardens, in the 'Bird Garden' at Iver Heath (his home) and the Wittenham clumps (near his uncle's farm in Oxfordshire). It is not the vision of the topographical artist, painstakingly illustrating the view before him, but that of a man 'immersed in nature, living and expressing himself through it' (Causey, p. 18). Indeed, in 'Outline', after a description of Kensington Gardens, the place where he would flee his cold London house and escape into an imaginary world, he wrote: 'It was always the Inner life of the subject rather than its characteristic lineaments which appealed to me' (p. 36).
automatism , surrealism , expressionism
ithell colquhoun (the unconscious)
control vs out of control.
compare and contrast:
one thing to take away: how sometimes letting go of conscious decisions/drawing without planning, creates more engaging art that is more emotionally charged… ? essence of you… no set purpose… an exploration… meaning comes in the process or after… the complete randomness… (reference writers?)
andre masson automats drawing
bruegel , carefully planned, clever decisions, clear purpose of allegory, definite/certain lines made for print.
paul nash, somewhere in between maybe, very immersed in landscape, but also not following things exactly.
bellmer - completely relying on subconscious and teasing out forms from within the shapes,
all three have a certain confidence that engages the audience in different ways
bruegel and bellmer: drawn very real, of something unreal, vs. something that looks unreal, but can feel very real.
- content AND form
The most important practise for the Surrealists was the development of methods towards the liberation of imagination. Something that fitted perfectly with Freud’s theory of Interpretation of Dreams. André Breton was trained in medicine and psychiatry and he used Freud’s psychoanalytic methods to soldiers who were suffering from shell-shock while serving at a neurological hospital. He and Philippe Soupault began experimenting with automatic, spontaneous writting and drawing without censoring thoughts, something analogous to Freud’s free associations technique on psychoanalysis. Breton and Soupault examined thoroughly automatism and wrote The Magnetic Fields in 1920.
Dreams were the direct connection with the unconscious, and through automatic writing, Breton believed that the barrier between the conscious and unconscious could be broken down leading to a new reality, the «surreality»
As Conley states (2003), Desnos was a poet that, without putting any effort, planning, or thinking about automatic writing, drawing and speaking, he just did it. For Desnos, automatism was everyday experience. His excellent ability to disconnect himself from any rational processes and to completely surrender to any random thoughts and marvelous images that sourced from his unconscious mind, made Breton declare him Surrealism’s “prophet” and, later on, praised him in the first Manifesto of Surrealism. All these, made him a natural surrealist, along with his resistance towards any kind of order, restriction and hierarchical authority, like the domination of fascism or communism, as much as that of Bretonian surrealism. Due to this particular resistance of him, Desnos broke with official Surrealism in 1930, only six years after the movement’s creation.
Freud believed that “the unconscious is the true psychical reality; in its innermost nature it is as much unknown to us as the reality of the external world, and it is as incompletely presented by the data of the consciousness as is the external world by the communications of our sense organs” (1954, p. 613). He also thought that, if we rightly appreciate the function of the mental apparatus and we understand the relation between the conscious and the unconscious, then we can diminish the ethical conflicts in our dream and fantasy lives. His theory proved to be of great theoretical value and contributed to the psychological knowledge of his time.
Surrealism, on the other hand, through its persistent exploration of the mind and the sources of thought rediscovered and recreated reality (Barr, 1968). Surrealists developed methods to liberate imagination based mostly important on Freud’s work with free association, dream analysis and the unconscious. They embraced idiosyncrasy while rejecting the idea of an underlying psychopathology that needs to be cured. Beside the use of dream analysis, they promoted the idea of combining elements not normally found together to produce illogical and startling effects. Their main purpose was to free people from false rationality and restrictive customs (Breton, 1924). As Gunt states (1972), surrealism was never a school but an expression in a particular form of freedom in mind and spirit, which “has no limit of date and may appear at any time to those who value the liberty of the imagination” (p. 47).
Realizing the perspectives and purposes of Freud’s and Breton’s work, through this short research, it is safe to conclude that the unconscious is an inexhaustible source of inspiration, containing the most important aspect of the human being, his living experience. It is, also, important for people to gain self-awareness and self-perception. The more someone understands his unconscious, the more he is able to also understand and appreciate the meaning of his existence. Only then, someone could reach his personal “freedom”. The kind of freedom that drove surrealists on practicing a higher level of art.
surrealism : a 20th-century avant-garde movement in art and literature which sought to release the creative potential of the unconscious mind, for example by the irrational juxtaposition of images.
rough notes from the day:
slant of rembrandt print - curator- thinking about paper’ her doing research, narrative through research. is my narrative that I chose about concept - how do I emphasise the form / construction. ? How can I bring the two together ? how do I bridge the gap between the two?
‘Thinking of paper’ came after the research.
a way to frame research that’s not overwhelming. brief was/ showcase the museum collection, talk about Rembrandt in a way they don’t usually take it
showing works that are unfinished - artist thought process. all comes back down to process.
people want to hear general stories about the artist. need to let them know how they are created. not just meant to go with words. art and history together. not just a children’s book illustration. to general public.
CONCEPT AND FORM. not easiest to do in public. how to tease out meaning by balancing content and process. why is the light and dark of interest? how is that different in other work.
reflect my interests but can be explained in content wise but ALSO construction. technique. use my interest as a guide and choosing art less instinctual but more how am I going to explain that in those levels. teaching audience how to read a piece of art. a lot of people haven’t been trained to do. how complex visual expression is. what people come to museums want to know. not about giving the meaning of life.
by choosing images that reflect him working on paper. people think artists work towards the end. but the in-between. eg national gallery most are complete. depends on what you like as an art historian, talking about complete / incomplete. for sarah, how things are made is exciting. always have to limit in your research. Rembrandt always working and improving and changing. museum curators, gallery curators have different system and goal, mostly to sell things. if you focus on subject matter, that’s what people are used to.
artwork you make not completely open to interpretation - but also want to give them facts to walk away with. ‘Art can be anything you want it to be’ Have to listen to artist. we’re a channel for the artist, represent them appropriately. debate between curators in content and processes - conflict, argument - someone will inevitably stand up, and make a comment , giving their own interpretation and shut them out. idea that history is fixed is not true. certain facts that are constants - eg an etching , often times turn to material as fact, base. can rewrite history.
print/drawing. photograph/painting difference. Rembrandt’s most famous print , a lot of states. so many of variants of line. on japan paper, recent import at the time, absorbs ink better, so got variation of tone. drypoint drawing directly on it. curator has to hook them, him as a technical thinker. normally write a catalogue. doesn’t present new research (eg contemporary post cards) (would write a paper) but presented in a specific way for the public. this exhibit took two years.
staying true with your interest and doing factual background checks. and audience.
formalism - broad topic. want to hear your distinct voice as an artist and think about what they’re saying to you. all art historians are also subjective. one part of curation, keeper - keeping / maintain / care for objects.
- reads very flat and graphic , actually a mixed media collage. one line.
- sarah was researching into ‘thread’ typed thread and drawing, deals with body.
- mixed media giving different perspectives on space of the page.
- arguments of feminism, associations with making tapestry etc with women, artist male
- if build from this - different representation of human body, or different mixed media works. have to have alternative possibilities bc might not be in collection.
artistic research ? art history, collecting images, different references, MAKING, DRAWING (active research) (primary source), secondary source someone’s words on it, most important thing is the ARTWORK. looking at the work. any activity that increases knowledge (broad), having a HYPOTHESIS. think one thing, trial and error, prove original thought wrong or right (value in having it wrong) reading, philosophy, personal experience, experimentation of materials
easiest way to build a workshop to have an idea you were working from. must build a case for yourself. convince people with fact. doesn’t have to be philosophy. interesting side note but the artwork always what we come back to. Always thinking about what’s here visually. want to talk about all the things that build up to your own work.
- movement , different line works for each character. occupy whole page
- expression of line.
- enhance emotional impact. social activism. for the poor. Socialist, poor were ignored. husband was a doctor, served only poor. print in mass, can get images out fast.
- progression in line and texture.
- looking at lines and how artist is building in layers. artists really provide a new perspective for the public.
- fabric / leg same thickness of line, but different object?
- line work and change to create shadow, boxed in? Also light source.
- how to render sculpture in two dimension? different textures. engraving - both limited in linear expression but also liberated in tonal values. etching, can’t be soft. etching considered high status.
- famous printmaker,
- layers of people in it / sketchbook page. softness, yet contrast. difference in media.
- layering and how the media bleeds through the page impacts, on purpose or not? impact his decisions moving forward?
- artist at work. and all the interest. how marble is carved, scratched. unfinished works. thinking sculpturally.
- how the leg is quite abstract - also poetry: ‘I alone keep burning in the shadows...’
- michaelangelo
- text and image, relationship to image. burning as a metaphor in his work, but dont have to go that deep for this.
- less like a lecture but working with people
- time happening on paper.
- coming through the paper. the woman, might be accidental?
- confidence in line, even though it’s so free, not a lot of changes in thought
- perceived close / far away.. space in drawings.
- after Pieter bruegel
- Made after, artist, copy them. attribution. hard to tell sometimes. reads as more crowded, not as much breathing room at
- engraving- crisp clean lines, building volume instead of expressive.
- how you can isolate fantastical creatures. make a narrative individually
- how subtle it is, many body, can’t make out any one of them in full? Intimate in how delicate it is. transparency in layers. barely there. sensual. materiality. softness of skin. curves, shapeshifting.
- suggest a lot of things without really being obvious- shapes - different tones, morphing form. have to be dead for 70 years for copy right, free
- a surrealist, the erotic drawing. a softer connotation than pornographic. holes of entry.
- shape shifting of body playing with
- automotism , unplanned, emerge from wash. onic,
- a lot of works at the time about point of entry.
- philosophy and surrealism, sensualised. possibilities how material can lead you to suggested form.
- sketchy, perspectives that don’t make sense? accidental? dynamic sketch. feeling that it’s from life but
- brown ink, wash. pen to refine the lines (quill or animal feather to use ink, not biro) (pen and ink- actual pen dipping into ink)
- architectural fantasy. imagines spaces. failed architect. fascinated with how architecture control movement of people and your reality.
- control even though it’s imagined. very quick, from own imagination. restriction. frantic.
- made prints, money. drawings reflected his imagined spaces
- his prints usually replications of buildings.
choosing works, is there availability. scale of it
- abstract, hard to draw from? not set shapes, fade in and out, still unsettling. Fold in paper almost reading as a line. combination, collage. how layered, daydream? can’t pick out individual shape? unusual in line. also lines created in tonality. variety
- massive portfolio of his work. 20 century British
- texture build into it, unmounted. aquatint, wash effect.
- abstraction is interesting to draw from, challenges. choose different things from it. good way for people to improvise. can take in different form.
London drawing group. great ways of exercises to engage with drawings but tend to focus on content, instead of exploring through drawing. thinking of ways to get into drawings, eg using abstraction, take line and lead u into something. maybe doing them yourself.
idea of levels of ‘finish’ process. architecture of body, etc. narrative, line. could come afterward.
Google : makes u lazy. get really curious and freedom, get strange and weird. adapt to research. ‘____ British museum collection’ have to go deeper. drawing after michaelangelo. ‘michaelangelo drawing academic’ throw things at the system. ‘curators comments’ sometimes need. from here make connections. ‘Location’ why someone would have owned it. ‘British museum library’ in relation to other work. ‘Print and drawings’ when building a plan: this drawing in relation to other, your own work. can connect your practice to it.
how to turn into workshop? how audience will be general. ways into art. but not about your practice. not assuming the audience knows anything (explain terms without being condescending, asking if people know what an etching is)
introduction + way in for people (eg casual drawing exercise) upwards of 10 minutes. think about being tight and concise. being able to speak, teach as an artist. these three works why they’re sitting together what we need to see. people know nothing when they come in, only one thing they’ll remember when they leave, what is the key thing - that’s your theme. how are they gonna get that. always bring in it back. the artworks need to prove your ‘thesis’, hypothesis.
- a clear theme. 2. An introduction on how to get into these works (close looking/drawing/talk) how they can look deeper. 3. consider when you’re preparing how to talk about the works, that they don’t know the terms, without being condescending! language.
- also not being nervous . just getting constructive criticism.
teaching - trial and error and not take things personally. develop thicker skin. May not be for you. but the purpose is to see if you suit this.
exercise: eg draw and discuss after eg talking about architecture shaping our reality, so draw sth in the room etc